U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,099 teaches a support curved to the normal shape of the spine with a longitudinal groove admitting the spinous processes and a pair of parallel elevations bordering the groove for engaging the transverse processes of the vertebrae.
When a person lies supine upon the support any misalignment of the vertebrae will, according to the inventor, be corrected without medical care or chiropractic manipulation.
In one type of misalignment of the vertebrae, to which the instant invention is directed, one or more vertebrae may be displaced anteriorly relative to adjacent vertebrae. When the displacement, or subluxation, involves many vertebrae, it may be referred to as Pottenger's Saucer because of the dish-like appearance of the back.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,581 teaches invasive, i.e. surgical, apparatus for correcting this condition by screws inserted into adjacent bones with pulling forces applied through a common plate that receives the screws and applies forces adjusted by nuts on the screws. The plate pulls the screw and the displaced vertebra in which it is inserted back into alignment with its normally positioned neighbors.
Chiropractors are taught a manipulation of the spine to non-invasively correct this condition. The chiropractor places his first hand on the patient's spine with the upper edge of the hand at the level of the normal vertebra immediately adjacent to the lowest anteriorly displaced vertebra. The chiropractor's second hand thrusts the patient's body weight toward the first hand in a thrusting motion directed backward (from chest to spine) and upward (from feet to head). The backward and upward motion of the spine is stopped by the first hand when it contacts the table on which the patient is lying supine. Because the hand is against the normally positioned vertebrae, but not the anteriorly displaced vertebrae, the motion of the displaced vertebra or vertebrae continue backward, moving back into normal alignment with the adjacent lower vertebrae. The thrust must be upward as well as backward because the facets, or meeting planes, between adjacent vertebrae are not at a ninety degree angle to the axis of the spine but extend upward at a lesser angle.
Each vertebra has a backward projecting, midline spinous process flanked on each side by a laterally projecting transverse process. When the patient is slender, the chiropractor uses the flat hand with the spine positioned between the heel of the hand engaging the transverse processes on a first side of the spinous processes and the metacarpal heads of the hand engaging the transverse processes on a second side of the spinous processes. For medium body types, the fingers are flexed to provXCL 307297 EDF 4 ICL H03K 1900 ICL H03K 1908 FSC 307 FSS 264;297;475;491;497 FSC 328 FSS 172